M1/46

Training For All

Tile Hill Lane

Tile Hill

Coventry

West Midlands

CV4 9SU

Head of Administration

(024) 7629 3125 Fax (024) 7629 3125

The great majority of the beneficiaries will have no relevant, up-to-date qualifications with which to enter the labour market, nor will they have any significant levels of recent vocational training.

In addition, they are likely to have poor literacy, numeracy and IT skills, and low self-esteem and confidence. Consequently, this project has been designed to give participants a sound grounding in the core skills of English, Mathematics, IT and Study Skills, as well as providing them with a range of academic and vocational options from which to choose, depending on their ambitions and career aspirations.

Their needs, although well understood, have not been addressed in a focused way and consequently most of them have low self-esteem, low levels of confidence, a degree of apathy, and a lack of understanding of the training opportunities available to them.

Many of the beneficiaries will be entering the college feeling nervous and unsure of their training needs, and consequently the college has implemented a well-established counselling and guidance process. This gives beneficiaries an opportunity to explain their particular situation and to agree an individual learning programme with the course tutor concerned. Throughout the project each beneficiary receives weekly tutorial support which allows an opportunity to assess progress being made against an individual’s learning programme, and to identify any further training needs.

The value of this approach is well documented and is demonstrated by increased levels of student retention, attendance and achievement. The confidence levels of beneficiaries and their feeling of belonging are greatly improved through this pastoral care approach.

This project will provide beneficiaries with vocational training on a range of courses, which is focused on their individual needs, and which gives them a real opportunity to undergo structured training. Experience has shown that these students will often be de-motivated, unhappy, will lack interpersonal skills, and will generally have little or no purpose or direction to their lives.

Each beneficiary will be interviewed before being allowed to join the project. Their educational background, and their numeracy, literacy and IT skills will be assessed, enabling the college to agree an individually tailored programme of study that will meet the needs of each beneficiary, and allow the appropriate qualification aim to be achieved within the duration of the project.

Thus their overall vocational and personal skills will be considerably raised. It is anticipated that a significant proportion of beneficiaries will attain an NVQ Level 1/2 qualification by the end of the project and that some will achieve Level 3. The overall skills base in Coventry will therefore be expanded through such training.

Job search and careers guidance is also provided for each beneficiary. The project has been developed so that it can be adapted according to individual beneficiaries’ abilities and requirements. This will provide a user-friendly, flexible curriculum, which will not overwhelm and intimidate the target group of beneficiaries, many of whom will have been outside the educational process for some considerable time.

The recent survey of local employers (1) identified that 35% of all organisations expect to increase their workforce within the next 12 months – compared with only 26% in the previous year. Anticipated employment increases above the regional average are expected in the following sectors ; real estate, renting and business activities (48% of companies expecting increases); manufacturing (40%); administration (38%); hotels and restaurants (37%); transport and communications (37%); and construction and others (40%). These findings are supported by another report (2) which showed growing demands for employees in the next 5 to 10 years in education and health, business services, hotels and restaurants, manufacturing, wholesale and retail, construction and agriculture. The above sectors all require clerical and administrative support which include all the skills covered in this Taster Programme.

Number of Beneficiaries

Total Project Cost

Total ESF Eligible Cost

Public Match Funding ( Cash and Actual )

Total Match Funding ( Public + Private)

ESF Funding Sought

Intervention Rate %